tales in living alone

For the most part, I've pretty much done a happy dance over living alone for the last two weeks. Living alone is awesome. I can do whatever the crap I want. Until there's a thunderstorm in the middle of the night and then I want to die.

Backing up for a second, yesterday around 6:30 p.m. my electricity went out. And I was like, WTF this is Utah, not the East Coast. Why are we having hurricane symptoms? I was secretly hoping that the electricity was out in the whole triplex or even better, the whole neighborhood because if it was just my apartment I wouldn't know how to fix it and I would have cried a thousand tears. Turns out it was indeed a large outage affecting like 3,000 people and wasn't excepted to be fixed until at least 10:30 p.m. Perfect. What the eff am I supposed to do all night with no internet, TV, or, I don't know, LIGHTS?

Since it's August, at 6:30 it was still totally light outside, but since I live in the basement, it was pretty much already dark in my apartment. There was enough light for me to get dressed (what - it was SATURDAY, I don't have to get dressed before 8:00 p.m.) and put on my makeup next to one of the tiny windows, and see enough in the mirror to know my hair looked like crap.

Luckily I do have a friend or two, so I went to Target while I waited for Kristin so we could go to dinner. Before we even got to dinner I got a call from the power company saying that electricity had been restored. WHAT? AWESOME PANTS. We still went to dinner, obviously, but I didn't have to spend the entire time wondering what movie I was going to go see by myself after we had finished our Thai.

ANYWAY - after dinner I went home, found power was indeed restored, watched the last half of Sweet Home Alabama on E! and went to bed.

A couple hours later at about 1 a.m. is when living alone got real, ya'll. That's when the LOUDEST THUNDER OF MY LIFE woke me up like a cold slap in the face. Naturally I thought I was dying. What else was I supposed to think then it sounded like a bomb went off in my kitchen and I'm still kind of half asleep? You know the feeling. Once I realized it was "just" thunder and not a terrorist attack on my street, I lay rigid and wide awake listening to all the thunder, cursing myself for living alone and thinking, "I better put pants on just in case I have to make a quick getaway." (SOMETIMES I GET HOT OK? It's summer and I live alone - I'm allowed to sleep sans pants if necessary. Also, why would thunder necessitate a quick getaway?? Where would I be going? Nobody knows, but this is what runs through your mind when you're alone at 1 a.m. in a thunderstorm.)

This was me:

Source: Thanks, MODG. You get me.

That's when I realized thunder is never not scary. Let's just all agree we're always going to be effing scared of thunder - especially alone at night.

Now I'm watching the MTV VMAs in my sweatpants with peanut butter M&Ms and no one complaining or judging or talking or breathing. So yeah, living alone is cool. Unless it's storming. Then it's the worst.

P.S. - When I got home tonight my apartment reeked of like moldy old lady. It's an old house so my apartment always kind of smells like old lady - but not MOLDY. Cause of the reek is still unknown and I now have a different-scented candle burning in every room trying to diffuse the situation. This doesn't really have anything to do with living alone except that there's no one around for me to be all, "DUDE. What's that smell??"

Gotta go - Justin Bieber is on my TV.